Comanche

Cultural and linguistic similarities lead anthropologists to conclude that the Comanche were originally part of the Northern Shoshones. Originally hunters and gatherers, they may have begun as a mountain tribe who roamed the Great Basin region of the western United States. History did not record when and how the Comanche first acquired horses, but sometime during the late 17th century, they became horse masters. From that time on, the horse defined the Comanche way of life. They became a nomadic people, buffalo hunters whose horsemanship was legendary. Horses also made them powerful warriors and astute traders. It wasn't until the Red River War of 1874 depleted their mounts that they were defeated.

For more than eight decades, Comanche culture was little more than a memory. Then, buoyed by a wave of Indian nationalism in the 1960s, the Comanche began to work to rebuild their society. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010, there were 12,284 people who claim Comanche as their sole ethnic identity.

The first recorded reference to the Comanche comes in 1706 from the colonial Spanish government in Santa Fe that had been informed by allies in Taos Pueblo that the Ute and the Comanche were about to attack. Twenty years later, accounts of fierce slave raiders who were at war with all nations began to multiply. The southern migration gave the tribe access not only to horses but also to a more abundant supply of buffalo and to French trade goods, including firearms, through barter with the Wichita Indians on the Red River.

It was only after their arrival on the southern Plains that the tribe acquired the name by which they are known. They called themselves Nermernuh, or “the People.” It was the Spaniards who called them Comanche, a word derived from the Ute word Komántcia, meaning “enemy,” or, literally, “anyone who wants to fight me all the time.” Fighting clearly worked for the tribe. An area of the south Plains that included a substantial portion of north, central, and west Texas, soon became Comanche country, or Comanchería. Bands, or family groups, of Comanche ranged from the mountains of New Mexico to what is now western Oklahoma and north to the Arkansas River.

From their acquisition of horses until the forces of the United States proved strong enough to separate them from their horses, the Comanche remained a nomadic people. The buffalo they hunted supplied not only food but all they needed to sustain their lifestyle. The tepee constructed of tanned buffalo hides provided them with portable shelter. Buffalo robes protected them from the cold. They bartered buffalo products, along with horses and captives, for manufactured items and foodstuffs. But not even the buffalo were more important than their horses. Children were taught to ride when they were very young, and women as well as men were exceptionally skilled riders. Horses allowed them to follow the buffalo herds and gave them an advantage when hunting or making war.

Confronted with the formidable power of the Comanche, the Spanish tried to negotiate a peace agreement. Various attempts failed until the Spanish-Comanche Treaty of 1785, a document that the Comanche honored, with only minor violations, until the end of the century. When the Spanish became unable to supply gifts and trade goods, the Comanche raided Spanish settlements for horses to barter to traders entering Texas from the United States. Eager to acquire the horses, Americans traded goods that included arms and ammunition.

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